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THE STORY OF THE 
CATTLE FEVER TICK 




What Every Southern Child 

Should Know About 

Cattle Ticks 










\ 


WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1922 





Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/storyofcattlefev01unit 



THE STORY OF THE 
CATTLE FEVER TICK 



What Every Southern Child 

Should Know About 

Cattle Ticks 



A picture book which shows how the fever ticks steal milk, meat 
and money from farmers and kill thousands of their cattle 




U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE , 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 
1922 

Issued in 1917 
Revised in 1922 



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wm»in' i i ii» ■"*" 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

RECEIVED 

AUG 241922 

DOCUMENTS DIVISION 



U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY 

■ June 12, 1922. 
Dear Children of the South: 

This story book tells you why so many cows and steers 
and calves in the South get sick and die. I know that you 
would rather see fat, healthy cattle than thin and sick 
ones. Most cattle that die of sickness' in the South die from 
the bites of cattle-fever ticks. The ticks carry tick fever 
from sick animals to healthy ones. Other names for tick 
fever are "redwater" and " murrain." Some cattle that 
the ticks bite do not die, but the fever ticks prevent them 
from giving as much milk or growing into as good meat 
animals as they otherwise would. 

This story book tells how to get rid of these robber ticks 
that bite cattle and suck their blood. The best way to 
fight ticks is to build dipping vats and make the cattle 
swim through a medicine that kills the ticks. The medicine 
doesn't hurt the 'cattle at all. In many counties people 
have gotten rid of ticks that way and now are sending to 
market the milk and meat that the ticks used to steal. 

Get your father and mother to read this story book and 
to help fight cattle-fever ticks. I hope you will like this 
little book and show it to your friends. 




Chief, Bureau of Animal Industry. 

3 



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THE STORY OF THE CATTLE 
FEVER TICK. 

ONE warm summer day an olive-green cattle fever 
tick laid 4,000 tiny eggs in the grass on a 
southern farm. These eggs were waxy brown in 
color and were not much larger than a turnip seed. 
Here is a picture of the tiny eggs: 



Tick eggs under magnify- 
ing glass. 




These little eggs were kept warm by the sun. In 
less than a month they hatched out into lively, 
hungry seed ticks. Each seed tick was smaller than 
the head of a pin. If you had looked at these ticks 

5 



THE CATTLE FEVER TICK. 



through a magnifying glass you would have seen 
that they had six legs. 




Cattle fever seed ticks 
Count the legs. 



These tiny seed ticks were very hungry. They 
wanted to get some blood from a cow or steer or 
calf. Blood is the only food they can eat. 

The hungry baby ticks crawled to the tips of the 
grass and to the tops of weeds and bushes. They 
waited there for an animal to pass by. This picture 
shows the baby ticks on the grass lying in wait for a 
cow or calf or steer. 



Cattle fever seed 
ticks on grass. 




THE TICKS GET CCN A COW. 



A cow walked slowly by the spot where the little 
ticks were hiding. 

The ticks smelled blood and got ready to get on 
the cow. 

Many of the seed ticks were able to get on her 
tail or her neck or her legs. 

Every baby tick on the cow began to hunt for a 
thin place in her hide. 

As soon as each tick had found a tender spot, it 
began to bury its head in the hide. It was digging 
a tiny well to the blood in the cow. 

Here are seed ticks driving their little wells to the 
blood in the cow: 



Cattle fever seed ticks 
on skin of cow. 




When the baby ticks got their first taste of blood, 
they began to suck blood as fast as they could. 
Every day they grew a little larger. They sucked 
blood and grew for about a week. Then they shed 
their skins, which is called molting, and became 
little 8-legged ticks. 



/ 



THE CATTLE FEVER TICK. 



Cattle fever ticks after first 
molt. Count the legs. 




The little 8-legged ticks sucked blood again and 
kept on growing until they changed or molted a 
second time. After the second molt they looked 
like this : 



Female, or egg-laying, cattle 
fever tick after second 
molt. 




THE TICKS SPOIL LEATHER. 



After this second change some of the ticks had 
become brown male ticks. The others had become 
egg-laying ticks. The egg-laying ticks at first were 
not much larger than the brown male ticks. The 
brown male ticks did not grow any more. But the 
egg-la} T ing ticks grew larger and larger, and the 
larger they grew the more blood they sucked from 
the cow. 

They made bigger wells in the hide so that they 
could get blood faster. 

Each of these wells or tick bites makes a sore spot 
and a mark in the leather made from the hide. (See 
illustrations on page 10.) 

The egg-laying ticks got so big and fat that they 
looked like tiny blood sausages, or little balloons. 
Each tick kept itself full of blood all the time. If 
you had crushed one of them, you would have seen 
the blood in it. The male ticks stay brown, but the 
egg-laying ticks, when they are fat, are olive-green. 

The big, olive-green, egg-laying ticks look like this : 



Full-grown egg-laying tick 
under magnifying glass. 




The ticks sucked so much blood that the cow 
became thin and scrawny. The cow was making 
blood out of feed as fast as she could. But she could 
not make blood fast enough to feed the ticks and at 
the same time keep well and strong and fat herself. 

97189°— 22 2 



10 



THE CATTLE FEVER TICK. 




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Leather made from a hide not bitten by ticks. 



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Poor, rough leather from a tick-bitten hide. 

You can see why a tick-bitten hide is worth from 75 cents to $1.50 less 
than one not full of tick holes and spots. 



THE TICKS STEAL MILK. 



11 



The ticks got a lot of the blood that the milk cells 
of the udder needed for making milk. The cow's 
milk fell off nearly two quarts a day. 





Ticks steal milk. Many ticks on a cow may reduce her milk two 
quarts a day. 

The ticks also got a lot of the blood that should 
have gone into meat and fat on the cow. 

She was so thin that the butcher would not buy 
her to kill for meat. 

Her owner wondered why she ate so much costly 
feed and gave so little milk and did not grow fat. 




The fever ticks have kept this cow from turning much of her feed into 
milk and flesh. 



12 



THE CATTLE FEVER TICK. 




This steer was not sucked thin by ticks. All his feed went to make beef 
and fat and bone. 




\ ''; '_ '■• 



This steer had to feed ticks as well as himself. His feed went largely 

to fatten ticks. 



Which steer would you choose if you were the butcher? 



THE TICKS WASTE FEED. 13 



The reason was that a large part of the feed she 
was eating did not help her, but was wasted in 
feeding the blood-sucking ticks. 

If these ticks had gotten on a steer they would 
have sucked from it blood that should have gone to 
help it grow into a fine, heavy, fat beef animal. 

If the ticks had gotten on a calf they would have 
sucked so much blood from it that the calf could 
not grow into a strong, healthy cow or steer. 

You can see that wherever there are ticks the cat- 
tle owner will have less milk and butter and meat to 
send to market. He will have to waste a lot of feed 
in feeding ticks which do no good at all and hurt 
or kill his stock. 



THE TICKS START A NEW FAMILY. 

The brown ticks and the egg-laying ticks kept on 
sucking blood until they could eat no more. The 
brown ticks ate a great deal, but they did not grow. 
The egg-laying ticks became olive-green in color as 
they grew fatter and fatter. 

The brown ticks at last dropped off the cow and 
died. They had finished their short, but harmful, 

lives. 

The olive-green, or egg-laying, ticks had used the 
blood from the cow to grow fat themselves and also 
to store up eggs in their bodies. When they had 
eaten all the blood they could use, the egg-laying 
ticks dropped off the cow into the grass. There, each 
laid 4,000 to 5,000 eggs. Having started a new 
blood-sucking family, the green ticks died. 

The eggs hatched into more hungry ticks to crawl 
on the cattle and to suck more blood. 



14 



THE CATTLE FEVER TICK. 



If only we could find and destroy all these tiny 
eggs laid in the grass, we could keep the seed ticks 
from hatching out. But no one can hope to find all 
these tiny eggs that are in a ticky pasture. 



Egg-laying tick and eggs 




The easiest and surest way to get rid of ticks is to 
kill them while they are on the animal and before 
they have a chance to lay eggs in the grass. 

Ticks can be killed on cows, steers, calves, and 
horses by making the animals swim through a dip- 
ping vat full of a medicine which kills the ticks. 



HOW TICKS KILL CATTLE. 

The owner of the cow on which the ticks had been 
feeding saw that she was getting sick. She was very 
thin and weak and feverish. The doctor looked at 
her. He said: "The cow is dying of tick fever." 
Tick fever is also called redwater, murrain, and 
splenetic, southern, or Texas fever. The cow got 
so weak it could not get up on its legs. At last it 
died in the pasture. The cow had cost $40, and 
the owner lost all this money. 



THE TICKS CARRY FEVER. 



15 



HOW CATTLE GET TICK FEVER. 

Cattle get tick fever from being bitten by a fever 
tick, and in no other way. They can not catch it 
from the air, nor the feed they eat, nor the water 
they drink. They do not get it by being near another 
animal which has the fever. 

No other kind of tick than the cattle-fever tick 
carries this fever. The wood ticks which sometimes 
get on children, and the ticks we find on dogs, rabbits, 
chickens, turtles, and many other animals, do not 
carry tick fever. These other kinds of ticks some- 
times get on cattle and annoy them, but they do not 
and can not give tick fever to the cattle. 

The fever tick carries cattle fever from a sick 
animal to a well animal. It carries this disease much 
as certain kinds of mosquitoes carry malaria or 
yellow fever from one human being to another. 

But the ticks do not carry this fever straight from 
a sick animal to a well one. Once a tick has got 




This cow is dying with tick fever. 



16 



THE CATTLE FEVER TICK. 




These are fever ticks. A, Full-grown female; B, young fever tick after 
first molt. The pictures are much larger than real ticks. 






These ticks, found on dogs and other animals, do not give tick fever to 
cattle. A, American dog tick; B, Gulf coast tick; C, brown dog tick. 
(Enlarged.) 

on an animal it does not leave that animal until it 
drops off to die or to lay eggs. So live ticks do not 
pass from one cow or steer to another. 

How do the fever ticks carry tick fever from a 
sick animal to a well animal ? The tick that is suck- 
ing blood from a sick animal gets the germs of this 
fever in the blood it eats. These fever germs stay 
in the tick's body and get into its eggs. The germs 



TICKS KILL MANY CATTLE. 



17 



in the egg get into the body of the baby tick before 
it hatches out. The baby tick after it hatches out 
carries these germs with it when it gets on a cow or 
steer or calf in search of blood. 

When the tick bores its well into the hide it lets 
some of these fever germs get into the blood of the 
animal. These germs spread through the blood of 
the cow or steer or calf and make it sick with tick 
fever. 

Sometimes these germs do not make the animal 
very sick. Such animals do not die of fever. But 
in many cases the germs make the cattle very sick 
and kill them. 

Thousands of cows and steers and calves are killed 
every year in the South by this tick fever carried 
by ticks. 

Many animals that do not die of the fever are 
weak and scrawny and sickly for the rest of their 
lives. 




.. ... : ■ . 



The kind of cattle the fever tick lets live. 



18 THE CATTLE FEVER TICK. 

The fever and the loss of the blood that the ticks 
suck out weaken many animals so that they can not 
stand winter storms. They die of exposure or starva- 
tion. Many of these would not die if the fever ticks 
had not weakened them. 

Many cows are made so weak by the fever and the 
loss of the blood the ticks suck that they can not 
care for their baby calves in the spring. Many calves 
die at this season. 

It is called "spring loss," and costs cattle raisers a 
lot of money. 

Cattle owners could save these losses by killing 
the fever ticks. 



AN ENEMY OF FINE CATTLE. 

Cattle brought into the South from places where 
there are no fever ticks get tick fever very easily 
and are almost sure to die from it. This is why 
good, tick-free breeding animals can not be brought 
to a ticky farm to improve the breed of the cattle. 
The fever ticks are almost sure to kill good milk 
cows, good bulls, or good beef cattle brought in 
from tick-free places. Fine animals are so valuable 
that a farmer can not afford to keep them if ticks 
suck out their blood and keep them from being 
healthy. 

This is why we see so many scrawny cattle where 
there are ticks. In ticky country we do not see 
herds of fine, fat, grade, or purebred stock. But 
where the tick has been killed in the South you will 
see fatter and better cattle on almost every farm. 



GETTING RID Of TICKS. 



19 




20 THE CATTLE FEVER TICK. 

GETTING RID OF TICKS HELPS A COUNTY. 

You can see that it is a very good thing for cattle 
owners to get rid of ticks. Without ticks they have 
more milk and meat to sell. Their cattle do not die 
of fever. They can raise more cattle. They can 
raise better kinds of cattle. They get full returns 
from their feed. They make more money. 

Getting rid of fever ticks is a good thing also for 
all the business men of the county. If cattle raisers 
and dairymen have more milk and meat to sell, they 
will have more money to spend in the stores for 
clothes and groceries and machinery. They will 
have more money to put into the banks. When 
there are no ticks, the cattle raisers get more money 
for their beef cattle at the big cattle markets. This 
brings more money from the outside into the county. 
When more money comes into the county, the people 
of the county are more prosperous. There is more 
business and more work for them. Everyone gets a 
share of the extra money. 

A MEDICINE WHICH KILLS TICKS. 

It is easy to get rid of cattle fever ticks. It does 
not cost much money nor take very much time or 
trouble. It is worth doing. 

The United States Department of Agriculture has 
found a sure and simple way to kill all of the fever 
ticks in a county. 

It has made a medicine called an arsenical bath. 
This medicine kills all the ticks that are wet with it. 

The easiest way to wet the ticks is to make the 
cattle swim through a vat filled with this medicine. 

To make a vat, the people first dig a deep, long 
trench. They line this trench with concrete and 



MEDICINE TO KILL TICKS. 



21 




When the cattle swim through this vat, the medicine kills the ticks. 




This shows how the vat is built. 



22 THE CATTLE FEVER TICK. 

cement, so that it will hold water. Then they fill 
the vat with water and put the arsenic and other 
medicines into the water. This makes what is called 
an " arsenical dipping solution." 

The cattle are driven to the vat and made to swim 
through the medicine. 

The medicine does not hurt the animal, but kills all 
the seed ticks, male ticks, and egg-laying ticks that 
are on it. 






Dipped animals trapping baby ticks. 

After the cattle have been dipped they are driven 
back to their pastures. 

The cattle become traps for the seed ticks in the 
grass and for the little ticks that will hatch out from 
the eggs already in the grass. 

The seed ticks in the pasture crawl up on the 
animals after they have been dipped. In two weeks 
the animals are given another swim through the 
medicine. The medicine kills all the young ticks 



TRAPPING BABY TICKS. 23 

that have gotten on the cattle. The ticks are killed 
before they have had a chance to make any eggs or 
suck much blood. 

Then the animals go back to pasture again and 
trap still more seed ticks. After the animals have 
been dipped in the medicine every two weeks all 
spring and summer there will be no more ticks to lay 
eggs. There will be no more eggs left to hatch out a 
fresh crop of seed ticks. All the ticks that have been 
trapped by the cattle have been killed by dipping. 
All the little seed ticks that did not get on the cattle 
have starved to death. 



EVERY ANIMAL MUST BE DIPPED. 

Where the people of a county see that every cow, 
calf, steer, horse, mule, and colt is dipped regularly 
during the spring and summer, they will get rid of the 
ticks in their county in a single year. All the cattle 
in the county must be dipped. It will not do to 
dip some cattle and let others go undipped. The 
undipped cattle will spread egg-laying ticks along 
the roads and in the free pastures and woods. The 
eggs which these ticks lay will hatch into seed ticks 
that will get on undipped cattle. Those that do not 
get on cattle during the dipping season may still be 
alive in the pasture in the fall. They may then get 
back onto the dipped cattle when it is too cold to 
dip cattle again in the medicine. 

Every cow, steer, or calf that is not dipped in the 
medicine regularly is liable to carry and spread ticks 
wherever it goes. So long as there are any ticks 
alive on any of the cattle the county can not get 
entirely rid of ticks. 



24 THE CATTLE FEVER TICK. 



HORSES AND MULES ALSO MUST BE DIPPED. 

Fever ticks sometimes hide on horses and colts 
and mules. They do not cause fever in these ani- 
mals. The few ticks that are on horses and mules 
must be killed or the seed ticks which hatch from 
their eggs will get on cattle. Therefore, it is neces- 
sary to make horses and colts and mules, as well as 
cattle, swim through the medicine. 



IT PAYS TO DIP CATTLE. 

It does not cost any one much money to dip the 
animals. All the people of the county help pay for 
the vats, the medicine, and for the dipping inspectors. 

Where people want to get rid of the ticks the 
United States Department of Agriculture, without 
cost to the county, will send trained men to help 
the county build vats, mix the medicine, and dip 
the cattle. 

The extra money the people will make from their 
cattle will pay them back many times for the money 
they spend for dipping. The extra money will pay 
farmers well for all the time they use in driving their 
cattle to the vats. 



MANY COUNTIES ALREADY FREED FROM TICKS. 

The people in hundreds of counties in the South 
already have gotten rid of ticks by using this medicine 
in dipping vats. 

Study the little map on the next page. Get your 
teacher to help you find the spot on this map where 
you live. 



THE VICTORY OVER TICKS. 



25 




26 



THE CATTLE FEVER TICK. 



All the country that is south of the red line across 
the top of the map was full of fever ticks up to the 
year 1906. 

These ticks were so dangerous to cattle in tick- 
free country that the United States Government 
said that no cattle with fever ticks on them should 
be shipped out of a ticky State to go to farms where 
there were no fever ticks. This is called a " quaran- 




Cattle in quarantine pens. These cattle are from ticky country. They 
are kept away from clean cattle. 

tine" to prevent the spread of tick fever. The Gov- 
ernment made this rule because these fever ticks 
would give the fever to tick-free cattle and kill them. 
This rule makes it harder for owners of ticky cattle 
to ship their cattle to the big cattle markets in other 
States, They have to keep their ticky cattle in 
quarantine cars and pens away from all tick-free 
cattle until they reach the slaughterhouse. 



THE TICK-FREE COUNTRY. 27 

Ticky cattle bring lower prices per pound than 

tick-free cattle. It is more trouble and it costs 
more to ship ticky cattle. 



THE TICK IS DIPPED OUT OF THE WHITE SPOTS. 

The people living in the counties shown in white 
below the red line on the map at last got tired of 
ticks. They asked the United States Department of 
Agriculture to help them. The Department sent 
men to show them how to build dipping vats and 
how to mix the medicine to kill the ticks. 

Wherever the people dipped all their cattle regu- 
larly they got rid of these ticks. 

The white places on the map below the red line 
show where the people have killed all the fever 
ticks with this medicine. These counties have been 
freed from the troublesome quarantine rules. The 
fever ticks have been driven out from 523,837 square 
miles of the South. 

The red spots on the map show where the people 
have not yet got rid of fever ticks. There are still 
206,015 square miles of red territory to be freed from 
ticks. 

GLAD THEY GOT RID OF TICKS. 

The people who live in the white sections on the 
map are very glad now that they got rid of the 
fever ticks. They will not allow ticky cattle to 
be shipped into their clean counties for fear that the 
cattle ticks will get back on their cattle. 

They write letters to the Department of Agri- 
culture saying that they get more milk from their 



28 



THE CATTLE FEVER TICK. 




m ° 

o a> 
o P. 

1—1 03 
03 



Pi X 



THE TICKY COUNTRY. 



29 



cows. They say that their beef animals grow 
fatter and bigger with the same quantity of feed. 
They tell how they have improved their stock by 
bringing in better breeding animals. Their cattle 
no longer die from tick fever. They get more per 
pound for their tick-free cattle at the big stock 
yards. The stock raisers say that cattle are worth 
$7.50 more per head where the tick has been dipped 
out. 

DO YOU LIVE ON A KED SPOT? 

Perhaps you live in a place that is marked in red 
on the map. If you do, there are fever ticks on the 
cattle in the country around your home. 

The next time you see some cattle in the country or 
at the stock pens go close to them and see whether you 
can find fever ticks on them. Notice how these ticks 
keep their heads buried in the hides so that they can 
suck blood from the animal and poison it with fever. 




Don't you feel sorry for this animal? 



30 THE CATTLE FEVER TICK. 




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Photograph of ticks on a steer's hide. 

Perhaps the people in your red county also are 
getting tired of ticks. Perhaps they, too, are 
beginning to build vats and are getting ready to 
drive their cattle through the medicine. 

Ask your father about this. If he says that your 
county is not getting rid of ticks, then ask him to 
read this little story carefully. Tell him it means 
dollars and cents to him whether he owns any cattle 
or not. 



BOOKS FOR THE GROWN-UPS. 



31 



BOOKS ABOUT TICKS FOR GROWN-UPS. 

If your parents want to know all about the tick 
and how to get rid of it, tell them to write a postal 
card to the United States Department of Agriculture, 
Washington, D. C, or to your State livestock officials. 
Without charge, they will send little books for grown 
people telling about the fever ticks and how to get 
rid of them in your county. 







A 



DIP THAT TICK. 

Fever ticks are costing the South more than forty 
million dollars a year in dead cattle, wasted milk and 
meat, and lower prices for ticky beef and tick-marked 
hides. The tick is the worst cattle pest in the South. 
Help free the South from this pest. Help the South 
become the great cattle-raising section its climate, soil, 
and pasture entitle it to be. 



ISSUED BY 

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



002 838 658 8 



